Bridges
by 1848EllisBell
Summary: A daughter helps a father through time. A Hunt Filler/6x23 post-ep/7x01 Spec.


**AN: I know I have stories to update, and I'm working on them, I promise, but this idea ate my brain today and wouldn't quit until I wrote it down. Now it's out of my head I can move on :)**

**This is a _Hunt_ Filler, and a _6x23_ post-ep/_7x01_ spec, all at the same time. No tense changes between scenes because... well, because of wibbly wobbly timey wimey reasons.  
**

* * *

Her fingers curl around the bars, clinging to the thick, cold steel. She takes in her new surroundings, absorbs all the information she can, conserves her energy, and waits.

"It isn't dark now." She speaks the words through the bars of her cage, out into the empty room beyond. "But the darkness was easier than this. I know it's frightening, but there's hope in that windowless room."

* * *

He kneels on damp dirt. Grit crunches between his teeth, mold clings to the sides of his esophagus, clogs his nostrils, what gets past is absorbed by his lungs. He wheezes now. It's a wet, rattling sound, deafening to his ears in this silent tomb, from the time spent in this dark, dank room. He doesn't remember being brought here. He remembers Kate, her voice down the line, murmuring, 'I love you'; he remembers the accident, being run off the road; he remembers strong arms dragging him out of the car; he remembers resisting, the sudden sharp needle-like pain in his neck - and then nothing. He has seen nothing ever since. This room his captors hold him in is so dark that the quick flash of light blinds him every time they slide food into his room. Food? It's barely food. Stale bread, a spoiled apple if he's lucky. The water tastes like mud, with the consistency to match. He knows he has lost weight, he can feel ribs bruising his skin from the inside. Crouching drains his strength, so he kneels, speaks to an imagined Kate, and when he closes his eyes he dreams of his family. It's been almost two months now - he's been keeping track - and one day he will be left alone for too long, they will become complacent, and he will escape.

* * *

"The light hurts, but you learn to adapt. When they offer you food, and the light comes in, you learn not to look away. You wait, for that one moment, that second that they underestimate you, and you make a break for it. You have to. I had to. I did." Alexis grips the bars harder, peers out into the prison beyond her cage. From her vantage point it looks like an endless labyrinth of halls, guards, security cameras, and guns. But here there is no minotaur at the center, no, the monsters lurk around every turn. She doesn't know who she's talking to, other than herself, but she doesn't stop, doesn't question it, she just keeps speaking into the empty room, like she's giving instructions to others held captive. Is Sara nearby? Did she make it out? If she didn't perhaps she can hear her now, maybe she's listening, waiting - like herself - for that one moment when freedom is possible. Perhaps the room will keep her words like an echo, and share them with those who come after her, with others who find themselves in this cage, long after she is gone. Perhaps they will carry across time, across distance, to someone, somewhere, who needs hope, encouragement to hold on and fight, as much as she does. More.

"Don't let them recapture you, don't stop, and don't go up. Never go up. Just get out, though whatever exit you can. And do not quit. You're going to be sore, you're going to feel like your feet can't carry you, but they have to, do you hear me? You have to keep moving until you are safe. Please don't give up. Don't give up."

* * *

He's been digging. His fingernails are broken, snapped and splintered past the quick. The skin of his fingers is rubbed raw. It will be some time before he can put his hands on a keyboard again. But he doesn't really even notice the blood anymore, he just digs. He scratches, and claws, and almost chuckles as he thinks of how he did this - a little less literally - to get through Beckett's wall. Now he's doing it to get back to her. He hears her voice in his head while he digs, kneeling in a corner, before a hole he keeps hidden from view, that's getting deeper, and deeper, and - if he's lucky - giving him a means of escape. It's taken him almost a month now, and every time more dirt comes free he hears Kate's voice saying, "I love you, babe."

The ground in this basement, this black hole they've thrown him into, hoping it will tear him apart, grows higher. He distributes the dirt, but they'll notice soon. He's running out of time. He's running out of space to scatter dirt. But they haven't broken him yet. They won't. As long as Kate stays with him, as long as he can still hear her, see her inside his head, he'll know his mind is intact.

But it's in the evenings that he hears Alexis. Could be day, he supposes, his body no longer aware of the passage of day to night. Dark is dark down here. But he dreams about her, he knows when his eyes drift closed he'll hear his daughter's voice. He never sees her clearly. Strange dark lines run vertically through her body, shielding her complete form from him. Like parts of her have been erased. But he hears her, her voice strong, her words adamant.

"Don't let them recapture you, don't stop, and don't go up. Never go up. Just get out, though whatever exit you can. And do not quit. You're going to be sore, you're going to feel like your feet can't carry you, but they have to, do you hear me? You have to keep moving until you are safe. Please don't give up. Don't give up."

"I won't, pumpkin," he says in his sleep. "I'm coming home, I promise."

He wakes up with those words on his tongue, and murmurs them as his fingers delve back into the dark, damp, deep dirt. As more of it is clawed out and pushed aside - as the hole grows deeper, and the smell of fresh morning dew clears his nostrils of the suffocating mold - the sunlight begins to filter in.

And he doesn't look away.


End file.
